“How could you have been so blind?” she snapped at her mother. “That whole year, he was after us all the time. You didn’t see any of that? I began to lock the door to the bedroom when we went to bed.”
Mei winced. “I don’t remember that much any more. Just that I didn’t like it when he made those ‘photo shoots,’ as he called them. They made me feel a little dirty, and then guilty.”
“Why didn’t you come to me and simply tell me? I would have believed you.” Kaia was close to tears.
“I don’t know, really.” Mei shrugged. “Maybe there just wasn’t any time when we could get to you. On the rare occasions you were home, you were always on the phone talking to this or that important person, arranging interviews, photo shoots, worrying about your weight, your wardrobe. And he told us never to bother you because you were busy working on your movies. We knew that he was the one who got you all your jobs, and we were afraid that if we caused trouble, it would harm your career. It sounds stupid now, but we were kids, and it was easy for him to mess with our minds.”
Kiele took up a clean butter knife and absentmindedly traced a pattern on the tablecloth. “He made it pretty clear. We could keep on playing along and being his ‘sugar girls,’ as he called us, or we could go back to being poor in Hawaii. I didn’t like being poor. I liked dressing up and having nice things.” She drew a line through the pattern she’d made. “But after him, I stopped caring about that.”
“Then he bought us the horse,” Mei added.
“Yeah, the horse.” Kiele snorted. “First the threats and then the bribery.”
“We named him Wind,” Mei said wistfully. “It was Kiele’s idea, but I liked the name too, because riding him made me feel free. Although ‘riding him’ mostly meant wandering around the paddock. Still, he was this wonderful, beautiful, powerful thing, and he belonged to us.”
“I liked him too, but I knew why we got him.” Kiele laid down the knife and stared through the salon window out at the sea.
Kaia wiped her eyes with her napkin. “Did he…” She choked out the words. “Did he rape you?”
“Rape?” Kiele snorted again. “If you mean in that big melodramatic way where they tear off your clothes and stick it in you, no. Nothing like that. But he still messed us up. Me, anyhow. He taught me shame and disgust.”
She chewed her lip and it seemed that she’d spent her anger, but after a breath, she continued. “Do you remember when we were little and you read Peter Pan to us? You told us that in Neverland there were not only the Lost Boys, but Lost Girls too, so we could enjoy the story more. You married that creep years later, but I remembered, and even when I was sixteen, I wanted to run away and be a Lost Girl. That’s how much I hated him.” She paused again in her tirade.
“Imagine. When other teenagers were already shagging boys, I was dreaming of bloody Tinkerbell. I’d see a shrink, but I’d have to tell him the guy who molested me is the agent and husband of the Great Actress Kaia Kapulani.” She took a short breath. “God, how I despise him.” Her mouth began to tremble and she finally fell silent.
“I’ll bring charges against him.” Kaia embraced her daughter. “There’s no statute of limitations on child molestation. I’ll put the bastard in jail for life.”
Kiele disengaged herself. “What’s the point? It was over fifteen years ago, and charging him won’t change anything.” She bit off the corner of her sandwich, as if eating would soothe her rage. “It’ll just stir up all the dirt. I have a good job and I love teaching young kids. I don’t want people at my school to look at me with pity.”
“But I can’t bear the thought of his getting away with that. What if he molests other children?”
“If he didn’t all those years after we left, he probably won’t now,” Mei said. “Kiele’s right, Ma. Accusing him might make you feel a little less guilty, but really, it’ll just make life miserable for all of us.”
“But it was criminal of him, and criminal of me to have not seen it because I had my head wrapped up in my career. I feel like I have to make it up to you somehow.”
“Well, you could buy us another horse,” Mei quipped.
“What?”
“Sorry, it was a joke. A bad one. But listen, Ma. Just get rid of the bastard and never talk to him again. Get another agent. I mean, you won’t be unemployed. You got an Academy Award, for God’s sake.”
“Of course. I’m not worried about work. But it won’t be that simple to ignore him. If he doesn’t get what he wants in the divorce settlement, he’ll try to ruin my career. It’s easy for him to start a whisper campaign around the studios. He just picks up a phone, and by the next day it’s the universal gossip. Making and breaking stars is his métier.”
“How can he smear you? You haven’t done anything,” Kiele said.
“No, I haven’t done anything, but he knows about Joanna and me.”
“Joanna and you…what?” Kiele glanced back toward Joanna in her discreet corner, who had continued cutting the tomatoes into ever-smaller bits, then back at her mother.
“That we’re…that I love her,” Kaia said.
After a moment of tense silence in the salon Mei burst out laughing. “My mother is a lesbian! How cool is that?!”
Kiele still frowned, but seemingly more out of consternation than disapproval. “Seems a little weird to me, I mean after so many years?” She glanced again furtively at Joanna, who had remained silent throughout the whole family discussion. “At least it’s someone who won’t try to control you.”
“I don’t know how ‘cool’ it is, Mei. It’s just what happened. I’ve never been so happy, and I love her enough to take the chance of the public disgrace it might bring.”
“Public disgrace? Oh, c’mon, Ma. This is the twenty-first century. It’s no big deal any more. Certainly not in Hollywood. Look at Ellen and Martina and Melissa. No way can he shame you with that.”
“Well, he’ll certainly try.”
“Let him.” Mei poured herself another glass of lemonade. “Even if we don’t jail him, karma will come round and bite him in the ass. You’ll see.”
Behind her countertop of butchered tomatoes, Joanna glanced at her watch and spoke up for the first time. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s almost time for the opening ceremonies, and we really should get ready.”
Obviously relieved at the change of subject, Kiele stood up from her chair. “Great. Just tell us what we need to take with us. Mom said we could snorkel while the two of you were diving. Is that true?”
“Yes, we’ll be paddling all around the site taking pictures, but you should be able to see us at least part of the time,” Joanna said. “Most of the exhibition is about twelve meters down, so you won’t see any of the details, but you’ll have an overview of the city. Fortunately, the upper part of my exhibit—which is where your mother’s statue is—stands at about nine meters, so you’ll get a pretty good view.”
“I’ve got masks and snorkels for you already. They’re right here.” Kaia opened one of the lockers under the running bench in the salon and pulled out two net bags. “They’re identical, so don’t fight now over which one gets the green one and which one the blue.” Kaia smiled for the first time that morning, playing at being mother again, as her two daughters took their respective kits and traipsed down the staircase to get ready.
Joanna came out from the galley and embraced her cautiously. “They’re wonderful, your daughters. Smart, attractive, real survivors. They seem to take care of each other too.”
“Yes, they do. Thank God, since obviously I didn’t take good enough care of them. And I can’t even protect them now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happens now? I didn’t want to dwell on it with the girls, but I don’t see how things can turn out well. Charges or no, if I reveal Bernard’s sleazy past, the press will eat it up. It will make major headlines that will taint the girls and me. Who wants to have people look at them and think instantly of child molest
ation? They just want to have normal lives, and I just want to go on making movies.”
She shoved her hands into her pockets, a sign of helplessness. “And if we say nothing, he’s won. He’s already so angry that I’m sure he’ll try to hurt me. He’ll find a way, I know.”
Joanna embraced her again. “Look, you can rebuild, no matter what happens. You have your daughters and the air is cleared. You’re gorgeous and talented, and people will still want to make movies with you. In the meantime, you can take a few months off and let the dust settle.”
“Mmm.” Kaia nodded hesitantly. “You know, earlier this year I got two invitations to do live theater. One was to do Ibsen at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the other was for a Macbeth in New York. Bernard refused both of them. He said they didn’t pay enough and kept me too much out of sight. If the offers had just come a few months later, I might have a job.”
“You’re really so determined to do theater again.”
“Oh, yes. I just have to figure out how to get through the door and—”
“Okay, team, let’s get this show on the road.” Mei appeared at the head of the stairs. She wore shorts, but the top of her bathing suit was visible in the opening of her Hawaiian-print shirt, and her snorkel jutted out of the small knapsack she held on her shoulder.
Kiele came up directly behind her, still drab and dumpy in a loose blouse and fat-girl skirt, but she carried a mask and snorkel in her shoulder bag as well. “You did say it started at noon, and it’s half past eleven now. Where’s it taking place, anyhow?”
“On the barge right over there,” Kaia said, pointing through the salon window. “We’ll go in our own dinghy, since we’ll need it later anyhow. Jibril’s already loaded it with our diving gear.”
“Okay then, let’s get going.” Mei said, as if she were one of the organizers of the afternoon. They marched single file through the salon and down the steps to the stern deck, where Jibril held the guide rope to the inflatable.
They climbed in, and once they’d distributed themselves and their gear, he started the outboard motor.
“This is going to be a great day,” Mei exclaimed.
Jibril smiled, coldly, it seemed to Joanna, and muttered, “Inshallah.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Within moments, they were at the barge that had sent down all the objects of the exhibit, and Joanna smiled at the sight. Having completed all the heavy lifting and lowering of the objects, its powerful crane no longer held a steel hook but simply flew the flag of Egypt. The work was well and truly over.
The artists had been instructed to arrive on the barge before noon. The ceremony would last about an hour, and at its conclusion, several official dive boats would collect the divers and their equipment from the barge and ferry them the five hundred meters to the exhibition site.
But Joanna knew how those things went in Egypt. Rather than deal with confusion and delay and problems of where to store their diving gear during the ceremony, she chose independence. They would arrive at the barge by dinghy, and Jibril would simply wait for them on the water with their gear. At the end of the ceremony, he’d take them the final distance to the underwater city and they’d be among the first in the water.
When they pulled up at the rear of the barge, the number of small passenger boats jockeying for space at one of the two ladders made it clear that others had come up with the same idea.
They climbed the portside ladder onto the barge, and Joanna noted that many of the lockers, winches, and other machinery had been unbolted from the deck, and rows of benches had been installed in their place. At the forefront stood the inevitable podium, where various dignitaries would give their official blessings. Cameras were set up on rolling tripods on both sides, and press already occupied the front-row benches. Clearly the committee had prepared well for publicity.
At the rear of the barge, where they had boarded, an area had been blocked off for people to line up so passenger boats could collect them and ferry them to the buoys over the exhibit. It was a reasonable and well-thought-out system, though Joanna was glad she’d prepared an alternative.
The majority of the audience was made up of divers, and their tanks—some thirty of them—lay in rows along the two gunwales of the barge. Family members and snorkelers made up the next group, and another dozen-or-so apparent tourists. Only a very few people—presumably officials and politicians—arrived in suits.
Joanna surveyed the wide deck until she located the other artists in a cluster, most with family members. Khadija was there with her husband, and a quick glance around also revealed Sanjit, Japhet, Yousef, and Rami, as well as a row of Egyptians who she thought might be the original architects of the buildings. Three rows farther along she spotted Marion in close conversation with the woman she’d danced with in the Sun Bar before its destruction. Well, well. Good for her.
Gil sat directly in front of them along with his wife, two sons, and a child about five, presumably his granddaughter. Noting that the bench in front of the Collins clan was “reserved” with towels, Joanna led her own clan along the row. “Is this for us, I hope?”
“Of course it is. Did you think we’d forget you?” Gil pulled away the towels and balled them up, until his wife took them out of his hands and folded them.
Once seated, Joanna twisted around to talk to them.
“This is Jacqueline, my wife…” Gil tilted his head toward the woman at his side, who stopped folding the towels and offered her hand. Under simply coiffed gray hair, her wide face held the same amiably squinting eyes of her husband. “She’ll take care of our granddaughter while we’re under. And these are my two boys, Oliver and Peter.”
The young men, both in their thirties, shook hands with the new arrivals. Oliver, athletic and with black buzz-cut hair, said “helloo there” with great warmth, but his attention shifted away quickly when the little girl climbed onto his lap. Peter was physically softer and plump, and the image of his father. But while Gil’s hair was white, Peter’s was shaggy and red. He offered a quiet, self-conscious smile.
“These are my daughters, Kiele and Mei,” Kaia said, and the four Collins adults nodded in lieu of yet another set of handshakes.
“Are you going to dive?” Peter directed his question toward Kiele.
Mei answered for them both. “No, we’re still at the snorkeling stage.”
“Yeah, we’re not into the heavy-metal stuff,” Kiele said with atypical wit.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Peter’s glance lingered on Kiele a fraction of a second longer than it should have.
Was it Joanna’s imagination, or did Kiele notice it too and lower her eyes?
“Anyone seen Charlie?” Joanna asked.
“I’m right here,” he said, moving into the bench row where they sat. “Just got here. I had to stow my gear in the dinghy we’re using. This, by the way, is my lovely wife Viviane.” An attractive woman in her early sixties and wearing a Harley-Davidson tee shirt nodded greeting to everyone just as the piercing whine from the speakers sounded, indicating that the microphone on the podium had gone live.
When the public quieted down, the government liaison with the committee—Joanna couldn’t remember his name—spoke a few banal words of congratulations and then introduced the president of Egypt.
To polite applause, Hosni Mubarak stepped up to the podium. His speech, in English, was brief, merely articulating the theme of the ceremony and the exhibit. Egypt, land of monuments and antiquities was taking its place in the modern world of art and ecological concern. He made only an oblique reference to the bomb attack in the Sun Bar by saying, “Egypt moves ever forward, and the forces of ignorance and extremism will never pull us back.” Then he surrendered the podium to Rashid Gamal.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” Gamal said in the same self-congratulatory vein as the two other speakers. With its collection of foreign artists, he gave the world to know that the city was both Egyptian and international, in the same way that the
pyramids were. He hinted that other announcements about the site were forthcoming, and Joanna guessed that meant a press release about the horde of tablets. If that was the case, had his office obtained any transliterations and thus knew how explosive at least some of the texts were?
A series of other speeches followed, from the minister of the interior, from a representative of USAID, and from a seemingly endless line of committee members. Finally the announcement came that divers wanting to see the exhibit should suit up and get in line for the small craft going to the site.
“That doesn’t mean us, does it?” Kiele asked.
“Nope, we’re ready to go. Just follow me.” Joanna gave a quick departure kiss to Gil and Charlie and began to guide the family to the port-side ladder. Kiele held back for a moment in conversation with Peter and was in danger of disappearing in the crowd that surged toward the stern.
“Come on, dear. We don’t want to lose you,” Kaia said, linking arms with her.
“Okay, okay,” Kiele said, then called back over her shoulder, “I’ll be over the train station, whatever that is.”
Jibril waited impassively out on the water, and when Kaia caught his attention, he motored directly under the ladder and tied up. Ten minutes later, they were at the familiar buoy where Joanna and Kaia wrestled on their wetsuits. Boats began arriving after them and tying up at the five other buoys, distributing the divers over the surface of the whole city.
“Okay, here’s the program,” Joanna said. “Kaia and I are going to make the rounds with the camera. You should be able to see us when we’re on this side of the exhibit, especially over the fountain. Everyone’s wearing a black wetsuit, so it’s going to be hard to tell people apart, but remember Kaia’s suit has the turquoise arms and her fins are light green. My fins are yellow. But if you lose sight of us, don’t worry. Just stay close to the dinghy and…well…have fun. Jibril will help you back on board whenever you want.”
“We shouldn’t be down for more than thirty or forty minutes,” Kaia added. She clipped on her weight belt and threaded her arms into the buoyancy vest, while Jibril held onto the heavy air tank.
Beloved Gomorrah Page 24